“Open the Pod Bay doors, HAL.”
– Dr. Dave Bowman
TABLE OF CONTENTS
=<<>>=
Image 1: Utility Vehicle Interior View
UV ARCHITECTURE
The Utility Vehicle (UV) is the true space tug. It can transport various other space hardware such as propellant tanks and parts of space stations.
NASA never had a version of our UV back then. Instead, they would have used their version of the OV as the space tug. It probably would have been too cumbersome to use an Orbital Vehicle (OV) for most of the required tasks.
=<<>>=
Image 2: Utility Vehicle Exterior View
The UV is another important vehicle in order to have a viable and profitable space program.
The UV is basically a slightly modified OV Intelligence Module (IM) without the propellant tanks and rocket engine. A 'donut hole' is left when the propellants tanks have been removed.
The 'donut hole' will be filled by a self–contained airlock with hatches at both ends installed in the middle of the IM (Image 1 [Larger Image]), completing the UV design (Image 2). This allows for a passthrough capability when attached to other USIS pressurized hatches.
Image 3: UV Intelligence Module
The plumbing needed to refill the airlock Liquid Nitrogen (LN2) and Liquid Oxygen (LO2) tanks are added to the basic IM design (Image 3 [Larger Image]).
The Table below displays the inert mass of the vehicle.
Core Orbital Vehicle |
749 |
kg |
Top Pressurized Docking Collar |
79 |
kg |
Airlock and Infrastructure |
4,309 |
kg |
Bottom Pressurized Docking Collar |
79 |
kg |
Inert Mass |
5,217 |
kg |
The UV will include two Inchworm Remote Manipulator Systems. It can be used anywhere because it can simply walk there.
Image 4: Inchworm RMS concept by Gitai.
The Gitai Inchworm (image 4) is the best quality RMS product on the market IMHO.
=<<>>=
UV Command and Control
The Utility Vehicle will be controlled remotely like any other drone aircraft with a cockpit that looks like a static simulator of the UV cockpit.
The layout has one pilot, with a glass cockpit and what looks like large screen TVs in the place of windows in front and on the sides of the pilots. The crew operates the UV spacecraft remotely, from undock to redocking.
=<<>>=
UV LIFETIME
The UV will be operated multiple times per year. The lifetime of the vehicle is probably determined by the number of cryogenic refills. The UV will then be replaced, with the old UV deleted from the fleet.
=<<>>=
UV DISPOSAL
When the UV has reached its operational lifetime, it will need to be properly disposed of.
The first few UVs will be brought down from space and displayed at the Spaceport America Museum that we plan to build in the future.
We will use an OV to fly several UVs into the atmosphere so that they can burn up. The OV will fly back up for refurbishment and reuse (unless the OV also needs to be disposed of).